Online file backup services are abundant but one of the core problems of all cloud backup services is the speed of data backup.

Services like Windows Live Skydrive, Dropbox, Mozy, AVG Livekive and others offer a good amount of free cloud storage but how do you back up 100 GB of data from your computer within two days?

If your internet connection is slow, it is going to take weeks (if not months) for all the data to upload at any of the cloud file backup services. Further, there is no easy way to take incremental backups as it is really impossible to backup all the data in batches.

You have photos, documents, spreadsheets, videos and a huge number of folders, waiting to be backed up to an offsite location but your internet connection is so sluggish that it would at least take 3 weeks to completely upload all the files from your computer into any online file storage provider. Holds true, even if you are a premier customer and pay a monthly fees for the hefty cloud storage space.

Here is how it works. When you sign up for the Mozy data shuffle plan, Mozy will ship you a data shuffle drive at a shipping address of your choice (currently open for U.S residents only). When the data shuffle drive arrives, plug it into your computer and the Mozy Pro client will transfer all the data to the data shuffle device. All the data will be encrypted twice, first with your default Mozy key and then with a unique one time key you choose.

Once the Mozy data shuffle USB stick is ready, you have to ship it back with the already provided shipping label. Once the data shuffle drive arrives at Mozy’s hands, they will take care of uploading all the data to Mozy’s servers. Incremental data backups are taken care by the Mozy client that comes out of the box with Mozy data shuffle drive, so even your mom can handle an offsite backup for you, when you are not at home.

The biggest advantage of using an offsite backup is that you don’t have to worry whether all the data on your computer is really uploading or not. In fact, you don’t need an Internet connection at all for the Mozy data shuffle to work!

This is very useful for businesses who have huge terabytes of data and they want the fastest off site backup plan, right at this second. And as far as the security and access of your data goes, Mozy never has both the encryption keys. The final key remains only with you so Mozy employees can’t read your data. unless you de-encrypt the backup from your online Mozy account.

Mozy cloud shuffle is definitely the way to go, when your internet connection is terribly slow and you have few hundred gigabytes of data to backup. Mozy data shuffle drive costs a one time fee of $275 but considering the shipping and technical charges, I think it’s moderate.

More information regarging Mozy’s offiste cloud backup is available here.